Chapter 499: Digging the Yellow River with Water Instead of Soldiers
After Zhang Yutian of Yanxi Army left Li Huajing's mansion, he did not go far or return to Heze, the capital city, but stayed directly in Caoxian County.
The servant comes in.
"how?"
Zhang Yutian asked urgently, and the servant replied, "The young man took the wanted portraits and compared them carefully. Sure enough, he found that there are many thieves in Li Huajing's mansion, even the Yuyuan thief Liang Min and others are also there, and the horse thief Ding Weiqiu is also there."
"That place has become a den of thieves now!"
Zhang Yutian breathed out cold air and felt his heart go cold.
The prefect Huang Dengxiao and the water conservancy administrator Gao Yuanmei, who were drinking tea and waiting for the news, were also shocked and stunned.
"That's too presumptuous, what are you doing!" Gao Yuanmei was shocked and angry.
"What else did you find out?" Zhang Yutian asked.
"The Li Mansion is filled with laughter and drinking, and it's so lively."
"It's over!" Huang Dengxiao panicked.
Now Zhang Yutian also understood that Li Huajing had colluded with Liang Min and other thieves, and expected him to suppress the bandits. As a result, his house has now become a den of thieves!
"Hurry and leave!" Although Zhang Yutian was a soldier and had a standard battalion, the situation in Shandong was actually so turbulent and money and food were in short supply. His standard battalion only had a few people. This time he brought a team of standard soldiers, which was really surprising.
What's the point of causing chaos?
The prefect and tongzhi also brought a small team of servants, and they were also panicked at this time.
"Go back to Fucheng quickly!"
"We must impeach Li Huajing to the court for his liaison with the bandits!"
Just as he was about to go out, Zhang Yutian stopped and shook his head.
"We can't go like this,"
"What's wrong?"
"Since Thief Li has an affair with the thief, he probably has turned against him. If we leave like this, we probably won't be able to leave. We have to leave quietly and change clothes."
Zhang Yutian was more cunning and came up with a plan for Jin Chan to escape from his shell. He called for servants, selected a few people to change into their official uniforms, then sat in the hall with the door closed, drank and talked, and asked several servants to guard the door, saying only
While drinking and writing poetry, no one is allowed to come in and disturb me.
Then they put on servants' clothes, anointed their faces, and went out quietly from behind, not daring to bring any more followers.
They were cautious all the way, and sure enough, when they went out, they noticed that someone was already watching outside the door. At the gate of Seizing City, there were even soldiers checking. Fortunately, they were well prepared. During the inspection, they even gave some broken silver as a gift, saying that a family member in the countryside had died.
I have to rush back to attend the funeral.
After getting out of the city without any danger, run away quickly.
Here, Li Huajing and Liang Min were chatting happily, and even drank until they were red in the face. Dealing with these rough guys, drinking freely and happily is undoubtedly the best way to get closer to each other as quickly as possible.
, it is also more convenient to talk about things at the wine table.
Once you've had a good drink, it's easy to talk about anything.
In fact, there is nothing left to talk about. What needs to be discussed has been discussed before the meeting. This time is just a meeting to confirm. The so-called blood alliance is just a supplementary ceremony.
After drinking the blood wine, everyone will treat each other as brothers.
In the west of Lu, everyone will be grasshoppers on the same line from now on. Li Huajing will be the chief military officer, Liang Min, Ding Weiqiu and other big leaders will be the deputy chief soldiers, staff generals, etc., and smaller forces will
The leaders are guerrillas, defenders, etc.
Li Huajing took the lead and negotiated over the wine table the reorganization of various people into the Luxi Rebel Army. The official name was of course the Caozhou Tuanlian Headquarters of the Ming Dynasty. Li Huajing was the chief military officer. The following was organized into Xie, Biao and Battalion.
.
It was even agreed that the troops would be formally raised in three days. Everyone would go back to their local areas and raise troops at the same time. They would divide their troops to attack the county town where they were located. Using Caozhou Fucheng as the base, they would divide their troops to capture the surrounding area and coordinate to support Liu Zeqing in raising troops in Jinan. At that time, Zheng Longfang and Yao Wenchang from the Xu Yan area would
They unite.
The plan is comprehensive and the prospects are wonderful.
"Those fake officials are still there. Don't let them escape. Lock them up and kill Ji Qi in three days!"
It was around evening that Li Huajing received the report and found out that something had gone wrong and that Zhang Yutian, Huang Dengxiao and Gao Yuanmei had actually escaped.
"How could you run away?"
After learning that they had pretended to escape from the city half a day ago, Li Huajing also understood that the matter was probably leaked. Although the news leaked for some reason, since the matter had been leaked, he could only take action in advance.
He quickly woke up all the brothers who were still awake and informed them of the seriousness of the situation.
"We must raise our troops immediately!"
After hearing this, Liang Min was so dizzy that he started to sweat all over. He gritted his teeth and said, "Okay, I'll rush back overnight to start the incident."
"Inverted!"
Li Huajing drew his sword and slashed open the table in front of him, "Send the order, it's against the order!"
The servants Li Huajing brought back, plus the men his nephews had come back in advance to contact and recruit, plus the men brought by Liang Min and others, all immediately picked up knives and guns and went out.
Since Li Huajing entered the city in Caoxian County, the local regiments have been controlled by him and his nephew has taken over the command. At this time, many people were still confused after receiving the order.
Li Huajing and others, with their heads and foreheads smeared with red and their arms wrapped in red scarves, began to clean up Cao County.
There was a Manchu Tatar official in the city, and his family of twenty-four were all in the city. Li Huajing took the lead and went in and killed his entire family.
Then he went to the county government office and surrounded Huang Dengxiao and other servants who had stayed behind, plus the officials who had come to pay their respects but had not yet left.
Upon seeing this, many servants and servants knelt down and begged for mercy.
Li Huajing only killed a few and recruited the rest directly. However, he killed all the officials. However, he did not kill the officials and kept them all.
Cao County was captured.
Li Huajing officially raised a banner in the city and claimed to be the chief military officer of the Caozhou regiment of the Ming Dynasty. He was ordered to do whatever he wanted.
There was chaos in the city for a day. The rebels from all walks of life were killing, looting, and even raping everywhere in the small county town. Most of the officials who were not killed in the county government office did not escape this second wave of killing and looting.
Wearing a red scarf and using the banner of "no matter what," they killed people and grabbed things but did not fall behind others. Several groups even fought over the spoils of war.
Noon the next day.
Li Huajing came forward, and the leaders of various ministries sent servants to restrain them, thus ending the chaos.
The leaders of each department returned to their own territory with their men, laden with looted loot. Li Huajing occupied Caoxian County and began to set up recruiting flags, set up porridge sheds and set up steamed bun baskets under the flags.
Those who join the rebel army will be rewarded with two steamed buns and a bowl of porridge, and will be fed as soldiers in the future!
Looking at those steamed buns, many people who were surviving the disaster rushed to sign up.
Zhang Yutian and others finally escaped back to Fucheng, and soon received news of Li Huajing's rebellion in Cao County. Then, Dingtao, Chengwu, Shanxian, etc. surrounding Cao County also raised their flags as rebels and soon captured the county seat.
Immediately after returning to Dongchang Prefecture, Ding Weiqiu and others also launched an attack to attack the prefecture and occupy the county with great momentum.
The three guys who had survived the disaster sat together in embarrassment and despair.
Huang Dengxiao even planned to hang himself from a beam to show his loyalty, because Li Huajing would kill him at any time, and at this time, the city was empty and there were no soldiers available.
Can't hold on at all.
If they abandoned the city and fled, they would not be able to escape the court's investigation, they would still die, and their family members would be implicated. It would be better to commit suicide in the city, and still be labeled as martyrs, and their family members could still get a good reputation.
Gao Yuanmei grabbed Huang Dengxiao and said, "We can't die like this."
"In the future, Thief Li, the Yuyuan Thief can no longer be controlled. Now that thieves from all walks of life are connected by Thief Li, we cannot control them anymore. We might as well commit suicide to avoid falling into the hands of thieves."
Gao Yuanmei gritted her teeth and was furious, "I have a plan that can slow down the thieves and win us a chance to get reinforcements."
Zhang Yutian also quickly asked, "Master Gao, what's your clever plan?"
Gao Yuanmei is a co-president of the Yellow River Water Conservancy Department and an official in charge of the river. He knows the situation of the river very well. He quickly said, "The Central Plains has been turbulent in recent years. The Yellow River has been in disrepair year after year. The Yellow River has serious siltation. Originally, the imperial court planned to dredge the Yellow River last year.
But the Ming thieves sent troops to Shandong last year, so the plan was shelved. This year they invaded the north again.
I visited the river embankments before and found that many sections of the river embankments were in very bad condition, especially the Tongwaxiangji river section on the border of Henan and Shandong. If this area cannot be reinforced, the embankments may collapse at any time during heavy rains this summer."
Zhang Yutian asked in shock, "Do you want to dig up the Yellow River embankment?"
Gao Yuanmei gritted his teeth and said, "We have been forced into a corner. We have no choice but to try to save ourselves. As long as the Yellow River embankment is dug in Lanyang, the Yellow River will burst and the water will flood Shandong, and the entire Caozhou Prefecture will become a sea.
He Ze, the rebels will be blocked. Moreover, the reason why the Yuyuan thieves are difficult to suppress is because they are protected by elm trees and have dug hundreds of miles of tunnels underground, extending in all directions. As long as the Yellow River breaks its banks, the water will overflow the elms.
Gardens and tunnels that hide thieves will become the death places for thieves."
Zhang Yutian and Huang Dengxiao were both shocked.
This is really a desperate plan.
Li Huajing, together with the Yuyuan thieves and others, are rebelling everywhere and attacking the city. They will attack Caozhou's capital at any time. However, they have no troops to defend and will only die.
But who knew that Gao Yuanmei, who manages the river channel, would be so ruthless that he would take the initiative to breach the dike and flood the rebels.
After thinking about it carefully, I felt that this was a clever idea.
Although if the Yellow River breaks its banks, it will cause a huge disaster due to the current rainy and flood conditions in summer, but now that we have no time to take care of ourselves, how can we care about other things?
As long as we can save ourselves, no matter how big the flood is.
Even if the Yellow River is blocked, when Caozhou is flooded, the rebels may collapse, and Caozhou's capital city will be saved. Even the Yuyuan tunnels, the base camp of the Yuyuan thieves, will be flooded, and they will be defeated in one fell swoop.
"Is it easy to dig?"
Zhang Yutian asked, he wanted to use the river water to retreat the enemy, but he did not want to take responsibility afterwards.
Gao Yuanmei looked at him and thought about the key.
"It's easy to dig. As long as you dig in the right place, it doesn't take many people to dig it out quickly."
Zhang Yutian looked at his two colleagues. Now they are all grasshoppers on the same rope.
He lowered his voice and said, "The copper tile houses are concentrated in Henan. We can go there quietly and dig up the embankment quietly. As long as we keep it secret afterwards, who will know whether the embankment broke by ourselves or was dug up by humans?"
As long as he didn't say anything, he would have borrowed the water of the Yellow River to drive back the bandits and kill the enemy, and he would not be held responsible. After all, although Tongwaxiangji was close to Caozhou Prefecture, it was still in Henan, and it would be the officials of Henan who would be held responsible for the investigation afterwards.
The three guys looked at each other and finally nodded through gritted teeth.
Dead Taoist friends are not dead Taoists. In order to advance and retreat together, the three of them each sent their disciples and their close servants to rush to Lanyang Tongwaxiang to dig embankments secretly.
A thunder exploded in the sky.
Big raindrops fell, becoming more and more dense.
As a river official, Gao Yuanmei used to be most afraid of heavy rains in this season, but now, he showed a proud smile, "God is really helping me. The rains are pouring and the river water is rising, making it easier to dig the river embankments.
Once the embankment is broken, the river will become more turbulent, and Li Huajing and the Yuyuan thieves will be submerged by the flood and buried under the water."
Zhang Yutian also looked happy. At this time, as local officials, they were only thinking about how to defend the capital of Caozhou, how to keep Wusha Dingdai, and how to shirk responsibility. However, they did not think about how big the disaster would be if the Yellow River burst its banks.
